Apparently still wary of the league’s code of silence, Laraque doesn’t name names in the book. Instead, he gives readers examples of how they can look back at stats and figure out who was juicing by watching for drop-offs in production during Olympic years, when many of the NHL’s elite would be subjected to strict testing.

It seems far-fetched that a flimsy formula like that would work, but focusing on who did what is not important at this stage anyway. For now, the focus should be on whether Laraque is telling the truth about witnessing widespread PED use, if he is just an opportunist trying to sell some books, or if he’s doing a little bit of both.

As the sports world learned when Jose Canseco dropped bombshells about steroid use in baseball in his book “Juiced,” sometimes ex-players are not making up lies to hawk their tomes, but instead, they’re telling shocking truths to push the product. Canseco’s claim that 85-percent of MLBers used PEDs could be an over-estimation, but he wound up hitting the mark on many of his accusations, including allegations against specific players like Alex Rodriguez, Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro.

“I have to say here that tough guys weren’t the only players using steroids in the NHL,” Laraque writes in the book. “It was true that quite a lot of them did use this drug, but other, more talented players did too. Most of us knew who they were, but not a single player, not even me, would ever think of raising his hand to break the silence and accuse a fellow player.”